UPSA and auxiliary services: how do you get the exemption from charges?

Auxiliary services: what they are and what they have to do with the invoice

Auxiliary services are the equipment and consumption needed for a production plant to run: photovoltaic, wind, hydroelectric. At certain times the plant powers them by drawing energy from the grid: at start-up, at shutdown, during prolonged outages.

For ARERA, transmission and distribution tariffs and general system charges are to be applied only to energy drawn for final consumption, not to the energy the plant needs in order to then feed energy into the grid. That is why withdrawals for auxiliary services have their own treatment. It is not automatic: it has to be requested, with a sworn expert report declaring the power of the auxiliary services.

From Article 16 of the TIT to resolution 109/2021

The exemption was defined by Article 16 of the Consolidated Transport Text (TIT), in its 2020-2023 edition: on withdrawals for auxiliary services no transmission, distribution or general system charges are paid, within the power declared in the expert report. If the power drawn exceeds the declared power by more than 10%, the conditions for end customers apply for the whole calendar year. And it applies only if no other consumption passes through the withdrawal point (POD).

Resolution 109/2021 of 16 March 2021 changed the approach. On application by the producer, those withdrawals become negative fed-in energy: transport and dispatching contracts for withdrawals are no longer needed, the energy is valued at the hourly zonal price instead of the single national price (PUN), and neither transmission and distribution charges nor general system charges apply to it. This also applies when other consumption passes through the same POD.

In 2022 ARERA gave these withdrawals a unit of their own, the UPSA, which the producer registers in Terna’s plant registry. The new regime has applied since 1 January 2023.

The date for your diary: 31 December 2026

The repeal of Article 16 was set for 1 January 2024. ARERA kept it alive as a transitional regime, within resolution 109/2021 itself, and has extended it several times. The most recent extension, with resolution 575/2025 of 23 December 2025, takes it to 31 December 2026. The reason, as ARERA states it: several plants still apply Article 16 and have not started or completed the activities to move to the new regime.

The TIT in force today, the 2024-2027 one, no longer has an article on auxiliary services. Once the transitional period is over, under today’s regulations the exemption goes through the UPSA.

The timescales are written down too: the grid operator has up to 4 months from the application to complete the procedure, not counting the time to install or replace meters and the time to supplement the documents. The new regime starts on the first day of the second month after admission, following enablement by Terna.

The steps to obtain the UPSA

1. The sworn expert report. For each plant it states, POD by POD, the auxiliary services and their power in kW. If the plant already uses the Article 16 exemption, ARERA’s form lets you use the report already submitted.
2. The application to the grid operator the plant is connected to: the local distributor or, for plants on the national transmission grid, Terna. You use ARERA’s standard form, with the updated single-line diagram and the expert report; it can be submitted by the producer or by a delegate. If new meters are needed to measure the auxiliary services’ withdrawals, the operator sets out solutions, timescales and costs, which are borne by the applicant.
3. The Terna-GAUDÌ registry (Gestione anagrafica unica degli impianti, the single plant registry). For the plant you create the auxiliary services section and indicate the supplier, the operator that will be responsible for the UPSA on the markets (in GAUDÌ this is the BRP, the balance responsible party). Once the application is approved, the UPSA is registered with the certified power; then come the technical checks and the metering checks.
4. The mandate and enablement. The supplier, with the producer’s mandate, adds the UPSA to its own feed-in dispatching contract. Once the checks are complete, the UPSA is enabled for operation: if the last check is completed by the end of a month, it comes into operation on the first day of the second month after that.

After enablement: the declared power is a ceiling

The certified power registered in GAUDÌ is a limit. If in at least one hour of the month the power drawn by the UPSA exceeds 110% of that value, Terna applies to that month’s energy the transmission and distribution charges, the general system charges and the dispatching charges set for end customers, increased by 5%. It invoices them two months later to the operator holding the dispatching contract.

That is why it matters that the declared power is the real one, and that the invoice is checked every month.

What EKA does for auxiliary services

The electricity supplies for the plant’s auxiliary generation services can be managed as such, with their specific features on the invoice. An engineer or a qualified technician draws up a sworn expert report certifying that the exemption can be accessed and that the POD actually serves the plant, wholly or in part. Once the documentation has been sent to the local distributor, as for any consumer we issue the requests for quotation, settle supplier and contract, and check that the exemption from transport and system charges is correctly applied on the invoice.

EKA supports you along the way.

The service: regulatory services for plants.